Agency Accounts For Ask Jeeves Sponsored Listings?

Looks like SEW forums just got another search engine rep to add to their belts. Promoted from a discussion on whether or not Ask Jeeves would employ the ability for agencies to manage all their client account under one roof. Mike McGrath, with the Sponsored Listings Client Services posted today that indeed their is the ability for SEM agencies to manage all their client account under the same roof. He says:

"The new automated system does allow advertisers or agencies to link together an unlimited number of accounts, each with an unlimited number of campaigns. To set this up, go to the “Manage Account Access” page for your account. Then, input the account name (i.e. email address) in the “Give User Access to this Account Address” and choose the access level (Read, Read and Modify, etc.). "

Go to know, and very nice. I hope Mike sticks around and answer other questions from members. Will be a great resource to have as people develop questions. Some of the stuff they have, in the program that is not mentioned thoroughly and or either not in the help file in detail so having a rep is a good place to start.

Mike also mentions that if you are a not spending more than $5000/month then you are confined to the email service for your questions at listingssupport@askjeeves.com. If you are spending over $5000 a month then you can use the AJSL Managed Account program and actually talk to a real person.

In my personal opinion I really don't see Ask Jeeves sponsored listings doing better than any of the other main PPC providers out there. I have been using the programs since they started about 2 weeks ago, and I keep asking myself when I use the program, why they didn't do anything to spice it up, do something innovative, different, or creative so that they stand apart and users can identify the value in what they are trying to do.

At the last SES conference in San Jose, on the evening forums on the 3rd day was an Evening Forum with Danny Sullivan. We didn't blog on this, but it was a very good sessions for the fact that people finally got a chance to voice their opinions on what they wanted to see. People were primarily pissed at Google. It was the first time since I started this SEO stuff soo soo long ago that I have actually see people turn on Google. They were tired of the canned responses and lack of desire to implement better functions in the Adwords accounts when all along they could just do it very easily. As someone once told me, their is "great money in inefficency".

Some of the primary concerns people had related to very simple things that could be fixed easily, other not so much. But the lack of response on behalf of Google was being to wear people thin. Some of the things from my notes that concerned them the most:

Better tools!

Better tools to track success

What affects ranking...

Better fraudulent click tracking... tell them what and where its happening

Better inferface, simplier

More responsive to customer problems

Better phone support and better reps

Support for better tools for agencies

Integration of 3rd party management tools, API

Educate the editors

...and finally Better Tools!

While there is more, that touches on some of it. People need better tools was the consensus from that session I attended. When it came down to it, tools were important to people, and it was simple stuff like having a tool to schedule when and when not the campaign could run. Currently you can't edit this, its either on or off.

So the jist of my speal here is to identify Ask could have and should have come in with better functionality and some neat features. They could have easily attracted advertisers with ease being that they could say "Hey look, we did what they wouldn't!", and then again maybe they will in the future. Guess we'll see.